Towards the active collection: the use of circulation analyses in collection evaluation

Abstract

As Learning Services at Liverpool John Moores University came under increasing pressure to provide value for money, they undertook a library per formance measurement exercise based on library circulation data gathered by their Dynix Library System. The project aimed to produce a simple analysis of the use of new acquisitions which would utilize the management infor mation existing in the library's automated system and set out to achieve 2 aims: to analyze the use made of each book acquired in order to determine the pro portion of each subject area's new acquisitions which circulated in the first full year of shelf life and the number of loans per item in each subject area; and to compare the library's acquisitions with statistics produced by Loughborough University's Library and Information Statistics Unit (LISU). Concludes that the data derived from these circulation activity reports can prove valuable in collection evaluation, enabling the library to identify high and low performing subject areas and examine budget allocations. The lim itations of this technique, identified in the study, could be easily overcome by library system suppliers if they provided collection management infor mation at a more sophisticated level.